Peel and slice twelve good, sound, fresh tomatoes; the slices about a quarter of an inch thick. Set them on the ice or in a refrigerator while you make the dressing. Make the same as "Mayonnaise," or you may use "Cream dressing." Take one head of the broad-leaved variety of lettuce, wash, and arrange them neatly around the sides of a salad bowl. Place the cold, sliced tomatoes in the centre. Pour over the dressing and serve.
Cut up one-quarter pound of marshmallows into small squares, also contents of one-half can of pineapple. Let the marshmallows be mixed with the pineapples quite a while before salad is put together; add to this one-quarter pound of shelled pecans. Make a drip mayonnaise of one yolk of egg into which one-half cup of oil is stirred drop by drop; cut this with lemon juice, but do not use any sugar; to two tablespoons of mayonnaise, add four tablespoons of whipped cream. Serve on fresh, green lettuce-leaves.
2 cups baked or boiled soy beans 1-1/2 tablespoons molasses 2 tablespoons butter or drippings 1 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon vinegar Pepper to taste 1 egg 1 scant cup breadcrumbs
When the beans are placed on to boil, put tablespoon fat and half an onion with them. After draining well, put through the foodchopper, keeping the liquid for soup stock. Mix all the ingredients, beating the egg white before adding. Form into balls or cylinders, dip in the leftover egg yolk, to which a few drops of water have been added, and then coat with stale bread or cracker crumbs. Be sure the croquettes are well covered, then fry brown. Serve with cream sauce or with scalloped or stewed tomatoes. With a green salad, this is a complete meal.
To make a tomato salad you must not slice the fruit in a dish and then pour on it a little vinegar and then a little oil; that is not salad --that is ignorance. Take some red tomatoes, and, if you can procure them, some golden ones also. Plunge each for a moment in boiling water, peel off the skin, but carefully, so as not to cut through the flesh with the juice. Take some raw onion cut in slices; if you do not like the strong taste, use shallot; and lay four or five flat slices on the bottom of the salad dish. Put the tomato slices over them, sprinkle with salt and just a dust of castor sugar. In four hours lift the tomatoes and remove the onions altogether. Make in a cup the following sauce: Dissolve a salt-spoonful of salt in a teaspoonful of tarragon vinegar. Stir in a dessert-spoonful of oil, dropping it slowly in, add a very little mustard, some pepper and a sprinkle of chopped chervil. Some people like chopped chives. Pour this over the tomato salad and leave it for an hour at least before serving it.
Cut up 1 lb. of cold boiled potatoes, grate fine 1 onion and mix with these, add watercress, or mustard and cress, and boiled and sliced beetroot; flavour with pepper, salt, oil, and vinegar as above. Hard-boiled eggs may be cut into slices and added, and sliced apples or pieces of orange may be advantageously mixed with the other ingredients. When oranges are added to a salad the onion must be left out.
Endives come into season long before lettuces, and are much used abroad for making salads. The drawback to endive is that it is tough, and the simple remedy is to boil it. Take three or four white-heart endives, throw them into boiling water slightly salted. When they get tender take them out and instantly throw them into cold water, by which means you preserve their colour. When quite cold, take them out again, drain them, dry them thoroughly, and pull them to pieces with the fingers. Now place them in a salad-bowl, keeping the whitest part as much as possible at the top. Place some hard-boiled eggs round the edge, and sprinkle a little chopped blanched parsley over the white endive. You can, if you like, put a few spikes of red beet-root between the quarters of eggs. It is a great improvement to rub the salad-bowl with a bead of garlic, or you can rub a crust of bread with a bead of garlic, and toss this lightly about in the salad when you mix it.
In boiling beet-roots be careful not to break them, or else they will bleed and lose their colour. When the beet-root is boiled and cold, peel it, and cut it into thin slices. It can be dressed with oil and vinegar, or vinegar only, adding pepper and salt. Some persons dress beet-root with a salad-dressing in which cream is used instead of oil; but never use cream and oil. To mix cream and oil is like mixing bacon with butter.
Scrape and wash it well, and let it lie in cold water till shortly before it goes to table; then dry it in a cloth, trim it, and split down the stalks almost to the bottom, leaving on a few green leaves. Send it to table in a celery glass, and eat it with salt only; or chop it fine, and make a salad dressing for it.
Sometimes one has a few leeks, a half cauliflower, a handful each of peas and beans. Instead of currying these vegetables (which removes all distinctive flavor from them) cook them gently, and toss them when cold in a good salad dressing. If you can give the yolk of an egg to it, so much the better. Any cold meat is improved by a side dish of this sort. The vegetables that one can curry with advantage are large marrows, cut into cubes, turnips, potatoes, parsnips. [Marguerite Leblanc.]
Four hard-boiled eggs, finely chopped; one head of lettuce, or one pint of water cresses; a large bunch of nasturtium blossoms or buttercups, the French dressing, with the addition of one teaspoonful of sugar. Wash the lettuce or cresses, and throw into ice water. When crisp, take out, and shake out all the water. Cut or tear in pieces. Put a layer in the bowl, with here and there a flower, and sprinkle in half of the egg and half the dressing. Repeat this. Arrange the flowers in a wreath, and put a few in the centre. Serve immediately.
